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Facebook Removes Firewall from Applications

Posted by Zonk on from the some-of-those-things-are-pretty-cool dept.

NewsCloud writes "Last week, Facebook quietly removed sign-in restrictions that previously hid third party applications from the public Web. In other words, Facebook now allows its third party applications to be viewable on the Web by anonymous visitors and indexable by search engines. Web developers can now build an application using Facebook's platform usable by anyone on the Internet — not just Facebook members (e.g. the Lending Library). In doing so, developers can leverage Facebook's login and registration as well its other platform services, which are becoming increasingly substantial. Facebook may be trying to gain advantage as a universal authentication gateway for public Web applications. If successful, it could further hamper efforts to establish OpenID. This will also help the company break out of its earlier AOL-like walled-garden strategy."

5 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. And... by owlnation · · Score: 5, Funny

    Facebook users organize a mass protest against this change in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

    1. Re:And... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      By 'organize a mass protest', I assume you mean 'create another "Facebook sucks" group'?

  2. They would, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    They made the mistake of organizing the protest ON Facebook. Oops.

    Now if you'll excuse me, I hear that you can make big money fast by installing this Facebook app called SendMyPersonalInfoToMotherRussia. I wonder what it does?

  3. Re:Is Facebook the new AOL? by ncryptd · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nah, MySpace could never be the new Usenet. They've had idiots on MySpace from the start. Usenet actually used to be good...



    Damn I feel old.

  4. Re:Is Facebook the new AOL? by SnowZero · · Score: 3, Funny
    Me too!
    (don't forget to top post over a full quote)

    Me too.

    -kihjin